This application is based on application No. H10-267987 filed in Japan, the contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing apparatus and method for storing and managing objects such as image data, where the objects are stored and managed in association with additional information serving for retrieval of the objects.
2. Related Art
With recent years"" remarkable development in the field of information processing, there has been a rapid improvement particularly in the performance of personal computers and the like. As a result, not only in particular applications such as the business field but also in general users, there have been increasingly wide-spreading information processing apparatuses such as image databases or electronic filing systems for capturing images by an input device, storing, managing and, as required, retrieving the images, and further printing by a printing device.
As one example of such information processing apparatuses, there has been an image retrieval apparatus for managing images and retrieving a desired image based on specified conditions from the managed image data. In the image retrieval apparatus, additional information is registered to image database in association with the image data. The additional information is used to retrieve image data from the database. The additional information to be associated with image data as a retrieval information includes, for example, attribute information such as file name, file creation date and file format, or other information such as keyword, hue and configuration.
The additional information added to image data for retrieving the image data becomes increasingly capable of various retrievals and improves in retrieval efficiency as the number of the additional information increases. Therefore, the additional information added to image data is, preferably, provided in as many types as possible. However, the more the number of registered image data increases, the more the work involved in the setting of additional information by the user becomes enormous, increasing the user""s burden.
For example, when the user adds additional information to image data so as to allow retrievals with various keywords to be done, the user finds a plurality of items of additional information linked with one item of additional information, and adds the plurality of items of additional information to the image data at the same time. That is, the user would make work to find a plurality of terms similar in meaning and contents to image data before adding keywords. Such work would be considerably troublesome for the user increasingly as the number of items of additional information increases.
The present invention is directed to solve these problems. An object of the invention is to provide an information processing apparatus for managing objects, the apparatus capable of reducing the user""s burden of the work of adding, to the objects, additional information to be used for retrieval of the objects.
An information processing apparatus according to the present invention is an apparatus for storing and managing objects together with additional information in a database. The apparatus comprises a positioning unit for positioning a target object and at least one of additional Information objects having additional information onto an n-dimensional map, a distance calculating unit for calculating distances between the target object and the additional information objects on the n-dimensional map, a selection unit for selecting additional information to be added to the target object from the additional information added to the additional information objects, based on said calculated distances, and a registration unit for registering the selected additional information to the database by adding the additional information to the target object.
Another information processing apparatus according to the present invention comprises a positioning unit for positioning additional information and an object onto the n-dimensional map, a distance calculating unit for calculating a distance between the additional information and the object on the n-dimensional map, a selection unit for selecting additional information to be added to the object from the additional information positioned on the n-dimensional map based on the calculated distance and a registration unit for registering the selected additional information to the database by adding said additional information to the object.
An information processing method according to the present invention is a method for storing and managing objects together with additional information in a database. The method comprises the steps of positioning a target object and at least one of additional information objects having additional information onto an n-dimensional map, calculating distances between the target object and the additional information objects on the n-dimensional map, selecting additional information to be added to the target object from the additional information added to the additional information objects, based on the calculated distances and registering the selected additional information to the database by adding the additional information to the target object.
A data storage medium according to the present invention records a program for storing and managing objects together with additional information in a database. The program comprises the steps of positioning a target object and at least one of additional information objects having additional information onto an n-dimensional map, calculating distances between the target object and the additional information objects on the n-dimensional map, selecting additional information to be added to the target object from the additional information added to the additional information objects, based on the calculated distances and registering the selected additional information to the database by adding the additional information to the target object.
According to the present invention, the user can easily add a plurality of items of additional information to an object with simplicity, so that the burden in the additional information setting work can be reduced.